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The cold air of the mountain seemed to stick with Ribbit even after she’d left the Snowy Summit.
It wasn’t just in her feet, her fingers, no, it was her entire body now. Everything felt cold, even deep down to her core. She felt frozen, numb to everything, and that included her own feelings.
At first the conflict with Jax had left her distraught and confused, scared even, not understanding what she’d done to ruin something that she held so close to her heart—hell, Jax was her biggest reason for still wanting to exist in this digital hell. Their relationship was hope, warmth, and joy poured in a cup with a generous helping of whipped cream and cocoa powder.
Now she stared at that cup alone—one more time she decided to walk back up to the cafe that’d grown so familiar. It was almost second nature, and the scent of hot chocolate hit her easily, despite not having a nose at all. She found herself leaning over a cup of it, hoping to hear the familiar sound of soft, padded footsteps even though a large part of her had already given up on him, on everything really, a small spark of her old self remained, quiet and desperate, hoping to see his snide yellow smile, or hear his voice call out to her from a short distance below—to move past all this, and become friends again.
After Snowy Summit, though? She knew that wasn’t happening.
The hot chocolate somehow made her feel colder.
She felt a crippling amount of loneliness, hopelessness even. As she made the slow retreat down to the rest of the Circus again, she caught Jax in the distance one more time, chatting with someone random. He caught sight of her, attempting to deflect, this time she didn’t approach him.
Instead she retreated to her room at a slow and sluggish pace, rubbing her arm slowly as she walked, staring at the checkered floor, feeling the edges of her vision blur but ultimately not crying any tears—she had none left, not after how much she cried once she left the summit.
She remembered the sharp pain that’d filled her chest, blossoming from her heart and shooting through her body at the realization that Jax had already moved on from her, had decided they weren’t friends anymore, and most of all at the fact that he honestly didn’t seem to care about her or how much pain she was in. She’d never meant for it to happen, for any of this, and so she’d just cried, and cried, silently soaking her floor in tears until she physically couldn’t cry anymore.
Today was the last day she decided to try sitting at the cafe—just one more spark of stupid, naive hope—wishful thinking that he’d come back and say he didn’t mean any of it, that he was still her best friend.
Hope that she still had a reason to live here—to keep trying despite being stuck in another world, unable to fix any regrets left behind.
But no, her hope had died for the last time, just like her warmth.
She had other friends, but Jax had meant the most to her, and she couldn’t handle that grief.
She eventually reached her room, pulled open the door, and shut it softly. There was no slam, no sobs, no sign of intense emotion or rage, just quiet acceptance that filled her room with an eerie silence. She didn’t do much, just laid on her bed and stared at the stars that filled her ceiling, her head replaying memories of her and Jax as though it were broken record—that one night screeching against her conscience so harshly that it gave her a crippling headache, one that made everything hazy, and the edges of her vision oddly…colorful. She felt like she was barely in her own body.
But it didn’t really get to her. She just stayed stuck inside her head. After the first day passed, she looked down at her bow and pulled it off, staring at it silently for a few seconds as the image of Jax tossing it aside came to mind, then she did the same, tossing it somewhere far away from her. After that she didn’t move.
She stared at the ceiling, arms folded over her stomach, eyes half-open, blank, dead even. Her spark had completely faded—and everything had begun to feel pointless, that feeling only increased as time went on, as she continued to soak in her own thoughts. They felt like an acid bath, it made the back of her throat burn, her chest tighten, her entire body ache, but she didn’t try to escape it.
She let it swallow her, shutting her eyes as though she could escape this cruel reality and live in her good memories forever. The cocoa, the jokes, the warmth she’d hadn’t felt ever since that night—she felt less empty in her head, her dreams. She’d started to imagine more adventures like the ones they used to have, all three of them, together. They made her feel a little warm inside—but it wasn’t the same. That, and she felt so foggy now that she barely registered that she was even on her bed anymore, in that digital world.
She was already so far gone; When Jax had started waiting at the cafe, at her door, it was too late—even then, he did nothing in the end.
On the final night, she could see Jax’s glove reaching out to her slowly from the side of her bed—of course she grabbed, with an almost feverish speed despite how little she’d moved the past few days. It was desperate, and so sudden that she almost felt dizzy.
Her grip was tight, but his hand faded in seconds, instead she found herself drifting in a rainbow plane, it almost felt like tripping on acid. She could see outlines of Jax as she floated aimless, eyes lazily drifting to follow the moving silhouettes as they moved in a steady line all around her. The headache that had persisted for so long had now faded as the colors clouded her vision, leaving her in a trance. She noticed stairs that she was slowly drifting towards, and for some reason…
She felt warm again.
No excitement filled her, nor elation, just a small, quiet, eerie smile. It was unlike her, but it appeared on her face—it looked more like the ghost of a smile, and had an unsettling peacefulness to it. As though she were truly content again in this moment, swallowed by her mind, where she could allow her dreams, nostalgia, and now-suppressed grief to consume her forever.
She had finally escaped reality.
That, of course, had meant she’d abstracted.
When Jax had heard something in her room as he approached for the third or fourth time to again stare at her door and end up not going through with checking on her, he felt something in his gut twist painfully.
Of course, he pushed it down. He pushed every vulnerable feeling down.
That was until Ribbit’s abstracted form crashed through the door and anxiety hit him like a tidal wave.
At first he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, only stare in horrified silence as a sickening amount of guilt began to blossom in his chest and squeeze at his lungs—until Ribbit saw him, and of course, charged at him.
He ran and hid behind a wall while while she crashed through the circus, and the moment she was out of sight he’d fallen to his knees, clutching his chest while tears dripped from his eyes, choking as he tried to breathe, mind racing as he was forced to think of every moment he had to talk to Ribbit again, to say something, to apologize, every little mistake came at him like a ravenous pack of wolves. It made him claw at his chest, rub at his eyes, do anything to make the anxiety and pain stop, but it just made his chest tighter. It made him feel like the floor was falling beneath him.
Ironically, the worst of it had come from her final words to him.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”
She truly had—and he had no one but himself to blame.
He couldn’t even tolerate hearing her name anymore.
Not after she’d been swallowed by the dark.
Not now that all he could think of were the awful memories of what he’d said to her.
Not ever again.